In the field of on-line CRM, companies with web-presences (or marketing agencies working on their behalf) bid on key words with search engines to direct visitors to their web sites and generate revenue. The various paths to a particular web site via other web sites on the Internet and search engines may be thought of as the web site's referral. Note there may be, conceptually, many referrals for a client web site or web page. Likewise, the term “funnel” has come to conventionally mean a set route of web pages that users must go through to get to a particular page on a web site.
Conventionally, various technologies exist for tracking referral data and funnel data; however, these technologies generally rely on sessions or cookies set up with the prospective customer's computer, usually triggered by a user placing items for purchase in a shopping cart at the web site.
Likewise, there are various, conventional CRM systems, methods, and computer program products for “call tracking” (i.e., the counting and gathering of marketing data on incoming voice phone calls that have been generated by a website). Exemplary of such call tracking systems is SourceTrak™, which is available from Ifbyphone, Inc., Chicago, Ill. and is described in U.S. Ser. No. 13/601,447, filed Aug. 31, 2012, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, and incorporated herein by reference.
Such systems, methods, and computer program products have typically been designed for the purposes of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), assessing a client's return on investment in a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising environment, lead generation, direct marketing, etc.
Other forms of voice call tracking are known in the prior art. For example, the AccuTrack™ line of products and services which are available from Mongoose Metrics LLC of Independence, Ohio USA, and CallTrack® which is available from CallSource, Inc. of Westlake Village, Calif. USA.
Other forms of call tracking use Application Programming Interfaces (“API”). For example, LogMyCalls™, which is available from ContactPoint LLC of St. George, Utah USA, provides a flexible API for users to programmatically manage their account. The MCA platform that is available from Marchex Inc. of Seattle, Wash. USA includes a real-time XML-RPC based API (which Marchex refers to as its “Application Platform Interface”) that allows clients to integrate the features and functionality of the MCA platform into their own internal reporting systems, giving great control to how data is presented.
Notwithstanding such advances, voice call tracking systems according to the prior art have been unable to both adequately track prospective customer referral or funnel activity via the Internet and confidently match up that activity with a subsequent voice call.